He's right you know. It might be OK for the lower orders to eat with their hands but the officers? Bad show!

he is also Absolutely Right abaht langauge when he writs, "in common with officialdom the world over, military writers love to use pompous words over simpler language. Combined with underlining and italics, the wanton use of capitals, abbreviations and acronyms assaults the eye and leaves the reader exhausted."

He's right you know. It might be OK for the lower orders to eat with their hands but the officers? Bad show!

he is also Absolutely Right abaht langauge when he writs, "in common with officialdom the world over, military writers love to use pompous words over simpler language. Combined with underlining and italics, the wanton use of capitals, abbreviations and acronyms assaults the eye and leaves the reader exhausted."

Lol!

I'd disagree with that. If you're writing to a technical audience of peers then even relatively obscure but specific acronyms are fine, if you're writing to a general audience of non-peers then you can still use acronyms that are in common use, e.g. ATM, PIN, and so on.

For example, if I were in the army still and was asked to "get a wagon from the MTO, pick up the QM Tech RQMS on the way, drive them to the FIBUA range, get some CQB practice in, making sure at least one run is in full CBRN gear, then RTB making sure I run the wagon through the POL point" then I'd understand it immediately without the need to double the size of the sentence by extending the acronyms. I'd expect all bar the most bone-dim squaddie to understand every word of that.

Even in other professions. For example, if you're writing a technical paper for a journal then you're usually hitting right into challenging word limits. Relevant acronyms help you in more than one way, first they help you stay under the word limit and second they stop you looking like a patronising berk when addressing your peers.

I'd disagree with that. If you're writing to a technical audience of peers then even relatively obscure but specific acronyms are fine, if you're writing to a general audience of non-peers then you can still use acronyms that are in common use, e.g. ATM, PIN, and so on.

For example, if I were in the army still and was asked to "get a wagon from the MTO, pick up the QM Tech RQMS on the way, drive them to the FIBUA range, get some CQB practice in, making sure at least one run is in full CBRN gear, then RTB making sure I run the wagon through the POL point" then I'd understand it immediately without the need to double the size of the sentence by extending the acronyms. I'd expect all bar the most bone-dim squaddie to understand every word of that.

Even in other professions. For example, if you're writing a technical paper for a journal then you're usually hitting right into challenging word limits. Relevant acronyms help you in more than one way, first they help you stay under the word limit and second they stop you looking like a patronising berk when addressing your peers.

Wrong target, I'm afraid. You weren't allowed a gun in the Army were you? The clue was mean to be in the words "he is also Absolutely Right abaht langauge when he writs|"

wereI had others fire my big guns for me! and Sometimes they went bang a bit too close to me for my liking. linked in any way?

One officer I learned a lot from actually deliberately called an artillery fire mission down on his position in the Falklands because he was about to be overrun. Fire mission called then see how quickly you can run with all your kit!

I did call down one live mission with a "danger close" qualifier on it signifying to the command post that "please, please, please get your calculations and meteorology readings right". Very scary psychologically imagining shrapnel whizzing past the tiny little shell scrape you're cowering in. You certainly get a different appreciation for life.

If there's anything that'll make you a pacifist it's seeing artillery rounds level an area. I'm very glad I've never had to be on the receiving end and I still cannot fully imagine the hell that the troops on the two world wars had to endure.

Arguing with the forum trolls is like playing chess with a pigeon. No matter how good you are, the bird will **** on the board and strut around like it won anyway

Probably a different topic to eating with your hands, but a visit to the Douaumont ossuary and the Verdun memorial will be enough to persuade most people of the ultimate (almost) folly of war...hence my own personal view of the situation in Iraq, Afghanistan and now Ukraine.